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Internet speeds: Malaysia still stuck at No 73, but zooms ahead on IPv6

By Digital News Asia March 24, 2016

Only APAC country in IPv6 adoption top 10

Lagging behind Singapore and Thailand in speed

WHEN it comes to average Internet connection speeds, Malaysia is still stuck at No 73 globally, but is zooming ahead on Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) adoption, the only Asia Pacific country in the top 10 of the latter, according to Akamai Technologies Inc’s Fourth Quarter, 2015 State of the Internet Report.

In terms of connection speed, Malaysia is behind its South-East Asian neighbours Singapore and Thailand, but ahead of Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines.

In terms of average peak connection speed, South-East Asia fared relatively well: Singapore was the global leader, with Thailand and Malaysia at No 18 and 55, respectively.

“This quarter’s report shows great year-over-year growth in average connection speeds and overall broadband adoption,” said David Belson, editor of the State of the Internet Report.

“This is particularly important as consumer expectations rise and many high-profile events, like the summer games in Rio, will be streamed this year.

“The progress we’re seeing across our key metrics shows that, while there’s still work to be done, more parts of the world are increasingly able to support the delivery of broadcast-quality video content online,” he said in official statement.

Among the highlights of the report:

Global average connection speed increased 8.6% to 5.6Mbps from the third quarter, a 23% increase year-over-year.

South Korea had the top average connection speed at 26.7Mbps, posting a 20% increase over the fourth quarter of 2014.

After a slight decline in the third quarter, the global average peak connection speed bounced back with a 1% increase to 32.5Mbps in the fourth quarter. This led to 21% year-over-year growth.

South Korea (95.3 Mbps) and Macao (83.1 Mbps) were the only country/ regions to post double-digit quarterly gains in average peak connection speed at 10% and 13%, respectively.

Each of the top 10 countries/ regions saw double-digit growth in 25Mbps broadband adoption except for Hong Kong (15%), which posted a 9.8% change quarter-over-quarter.

In the fourth quarter of 2015, 32% of unique IP addresses across the world connected to Akamai at average speeds above 10Mbps, an increase of 15% over the previous quarter. Year-over-year, this was a 34% increase.

Asia Pacific highlights

In the fourth quarter, 11 of the 15 surveyed Asia Pacific countries/ regions had average connection speeds above the 4Mbps broadband threshold – up from 10 in the third quarter – and five of these exceeded the 10Mbps threshold, Akamai said in its report.

India once again had the lowest average connection speed among surveyed countries in the region at 2.8Mbps, followed by the Philippines at 3.2Mbps.

Fourteen of the 15 surveyed countries/ regions in the Asia Pacific region showed year-over-year growth in observed average connection speeds in the fourth quarter with Hong Kong having the only decline (0.4%).

Indonesia, with a 109% gain, was the only country to see its average connection speed more than double compared with the year prior.

The Asia Pacific region continues to lead the world in average peak connection speeds with the top nine global leaders all found in the region.

Singapore and Hong Kong once again led the pack as the only two countries/ regions with average peak connection speeds above the 100Mbps threshold, while an additional five surveyed countries/ regions in Asia Pacific saw average peak speeds above 50Mbps – up from four in the third quarter.

Indonesia enjoyed the largest gain with a tremendous 157% jump followed by Vietnam with a 23% increase. Singapore had the smallest quarterly gain at 0.2%, Akamai said.

The fourth quarter also saw news of more efforts to boost broadband deployments. The Malaysian Government announced plans to boost the country’s Internet penetration rate to 95% by 2020, with 55% penetration for high-speed Internet.

Telekom Malaysia announced it had signed two public-private deals with the government to bring high-speed Internet to rural towns across the country.

The projects, costing approximately US$785 million in total, include upgrading the existing broadband network with fibre-optic connections as well as building out a new high-speed network.